Does this game's plot even supposed to make sense? (spoilers!)

[Pauca Verba]

So from what i understood the chronology is like this:

Selene's mother hits astronaut and falls in the lake. For some unexplained reasons creator-destroyer sits at the bottom of the lake and pulls her away when she tried to save Selene. Somehow Selene survives and says "Helios" after getting out of the water, but her mother is left diabled.

There is a conflict between Selene and her mother, mother is (probably) locked in the basement. It's possible that Selene had child named Helios who died. Also her house maybe burned with mother inside (but also maybe not, since when she returns to Earth she lives in very same house).

Then Selene grows up and leaves to explore the galaxy, gets signal that for some unknown reasons named White Shadow, and crashes at Atropos.

On Atropos, creator-destroyer came long time ago and offered a race of Kognites to serve him. Some agreed, some now, they fought each other and killed each other. Some still remain but crazy. Creator-destroyer just chills on the bottom of the ocean without any clear goal in mind.

When Selene crashes, she ends up in the cycle, that looks a bit like time loop, but is actually not since time passes, and she gets resurrected near the ship.

Why she gets resurrected? No answer.

Why she has the memories of past selfs, but there seem to be also the ones that she does not remember, like they coming from parallel timelines? No explanation.

Why planet around her also changes in each new cycle? New parallel world? No answer.

Why cycle exists, how it exists and what it is? No answer.

In the end, Selene enters the body of the astronaut, causing her mother to drive off the road and trigger all the negative things in her life. Why? Also why the astronaut looks different from Selene's space suit? No answer.

Is there any meaning at all in this game, or it's just another case of writers being unable to give definite answers so they chose to be as vague as possible so people will not guess that they don't know how to explain all of this?

[Moo]

Originally posted by saluteyourshorts:

The plot definitely became a low point. The idea of actually getting pulled into an alien world/time loop by some Lovecraftian horror and actually having to escape somehow was interesting. But turning it into a David Lynch fever dream of someone coping with mental illness just makes it lose any intrigue.

And beyond the fact that the "it's not real" thing is getting old, there's this whole "Our story doesn't make sense and is open to interpretation. Isn't that so deep and sophisticated?" schtick that very, very few storytellers can pull off well.

The biggest disappointment was that there's no secret final boss. After beating the game the first time, I thought for sure that the giant squid creature from the cutscene would be the true final boss, and there would some secret path (and maybe even an additional biome).

Yeah my original thoughts before gaining more information is that this was inspired by Edge of Tomorrow, especially since the first monsters have a very similar look to them just the difference being is that she's having her memories weaponized against her causing distortions but still grounded in an actual alien world. Kinda sad that it's seemingly gone the just a dream route.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by C1REX-PL:

Do we know she was an astronaut? The astronaut looks like the child’s toy. Enemies look like favourite “Octo” toy.

I think she tried to became one and got rejected. You can find the letter during one of the house visits.

[GTCv Deimos]

Originally posted by Samael:

Here's an interesting take:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fimmD9EtVd0

This video definitely made me go out of my way to get Returnal asap. I think the key here is that Returnal's plot is not to be taken literally. This game is basically about a nightmare that never ends, and through that lense, I think it does very well.

[NLxAROSA]

Like a David Lynch movie, there are multiple ways to interpret the story, and guess what: whatever your interpretation is: you are right. :)

[Kan3da.]

Originally posted by Dewru:

Your interpretation is about a convoluted and messy as every other explanation I've read/watched so i'd say you nailed it. This is what the developers wanted when they couldn't decide on an actual story as far as i can tell.

Yes, of course. The way the narrative is constructed is obviously due to indecision. Well, as far as you can tell.

[Kan3da.]

Originally posted by Pauca Verba:

So from what i understood the chronology is like this:

Selene's mother hits astronaut and falls in the lake. For some unexplained reasons creator-destroyer sits at the bottom of the lake and pulls her away when she tried to save Selene. Somehow Selene survives and says "Helios" after getting out of the water, but her mother is left diabled.

There is a conflict between Selene and her mother, mother is (probably) locked in the basement. It's possible that Selene had child named Helios who died. Also her house maybe burned with mother inside (but also maybe not, since when she returns to Earth she lives in very same house).

Then Selene grows up and leaves to explore the galaxy, gets signal that for some unknown reasons named White Shadow, and crashes at Atropos.

On Atropos, creator-destroyer came long time ago and offered a race of Kognites to serve him. Some agreed, some now, they fought each other and killed each other. Some still remain but crazy. Creator-destroyer just chills on the bottom of the ocean without any clear goal in mind.

When Selene crashes, she ends up in the cycle, that looks a bit like time loop, but is actually not since time passes, and she gets resurrected near the ship.

Why she gets resurrected? No answer.

Why she has the memories of past selfs, but there seem to be also the ones that she does not remember, like they coming from parallel timelines? No explanation.

Why planet around her also changes in each new cycle? New parallel world? No answer.

Why cycle exists, how it exists and what it is? No answer.

In the end, Selene enters the body of the astronaut, causing her mother to drive off the road and trigger all the negative things in her life. Why? Also why the astronaut looks different from Selene's space suit? No answer.

Is there any meaning at all in this game, or it's just another case of writers being unable to give definite answers so they chose to be as vague as possible so people will not guess that they don't know how to explain all of this?

It makes perfect sense. It is, actually meticulously crafted and very specific.

Selene was in an accident with her mother and later with her Son. She became an astronaut because of her mothers ambitions that stayed unfulfilled. Her mother resented her for it though. Her ambitions and broken relationship with her mother made it impossible for her to love her son caringly. There was no Astronaut on the bridge.

Its not about the plot points. The game part is the solid component. Selenes place in it is quote; "the soft, jelly thing."

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by Kan3da.:

It makes perfect sense. It is, actually meticulously crafted and very specific.

Selene was in an accident with her mother and later with her Son. She became an astronaut because of her mothers ambitions that stayed unfulfilled. Her mother resented her for it though. Her ambitions and broken relationship with her mother made it impossible for her to love her son caringly. There was no Astronaut on the bridge.

Its not about the plot points. The game part is the solid component. Selenes place in it is quote; "the soft, jelly thing."

I'm not even sure she managed to became an astronaut, which may had strained the relationship with her son even more. You can find a letter of rejection from the Astra program, during one of the house visits, although I'm not sure what this means. She could have already been an astronaut, but was rejected from the particular project in favour of someone without a family for example.

Originally posted by NLxAROSA:

Like a David Lynch movie, there are multiple ways to interpret the story, and guess what: whatever your interpretation is: you are right. :)

There is a lot of symbolism and many things are left to interpretation, but the core of the story is made pretty clear as you play through the game.

[Peppa]

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[C1REX]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

There is a lot of symbolism and many things are left to interpretation, but the core of the story is made pretty clear as you play through the game.

I thought the same but later got confused and I’m not sure what’s going on now.
It’s starts simple. She was rejected. Plenty of pills in the house suggesting mental illness. Car crash. Mother paralysed and a child unharmed.

Then I get conflicting parts:
She got a son - not a daughter.
She looks different in the game than in reality (car crash clip)
Why she has two colour eyes in the game? Dual personality?
Why she has his son’s toy (green blocky figure) in the spaceship?
Why we control the boy in the house and his toys are used as enemies and artefacts in the game?

I’m in act3 and I’m more confused now than I was after beating act1.

[Pauca Verba]

Originally posted by saluteyourshorts:

The plot definitely became a low point. The idea of actually getting pulled into an alien world/time loop by some Lovecraftian horror and actually having to escape somehow was interesting. But turning it into a David Lynch fever dream of someone coping with mental illness just makes it lose any intrigue.

And beyond the fact that the "it's not real" thing is getting old, there's this whole "Our story doesn't make sense and is open to interpretation. Isn't that so deep and sophisticated?" schtick that very, very few storytellers can pull off well.

The biggest disappointment was that there's no secret final boss. After beating the game the first time, I thought for sure that the giant squid creature from the cutscene would be the true final boss, and there would some secret path (and maybe even an additional biome).

There are some good examples, though. Vanishing of Ethan Carther is probably the best i ever encountered, i didn't felt bad finding out that nothing was real, and and that the detective were created by the dying mind of the abused child. They just delivered it right - instead of cryptic events they made beautiful metaphors, that all made sense in the final reveal. No theories, no unanswhered questions, no uncertainty. This is how you tell such story in a satisfying way.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by C1REX-PL:

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

There is a lot of symbolism and many things are left to interpretation, but the core of the story is made pretty clear as you play through the game.

I thought the same but later got confusing and I’m not sure what’s going on.
It’s start simple. She was rejected. Plenty of pills in the house suggesting mental illness. Car crash. Mother paralysed and a child unharmed.

Then I get conflicting parts:
She got a son - not a daughter.
She looks different in the game than in reality (car crash clip)
Why she has two colour eyes in the game? Dual personality?
Why she has his son’s toy (green blocky figure) in the spaceship?
Why we control the boy in the house and his toys are used as enemies and artefacts in the game?

I’m in act3 and I’m more confused now than I was after beating act1.

Shouldn't have said "pretty clear", the game is being vague, and is giving you pieces of the story scarcely and out of order. What I meant to say is that once you get most of the pieces, and also remember them, the core of the story is no longer up to interpretation.

There are also little things that are easy to miss. For example, her son's name, the song played by the 4th boss that she cannot stand, why does the space ship have car pedals? Then it's starting to come together. It's a shame you can't visit the house again without wiping your save, would have been useful to refresh my memory. Maybe I'll make a backup and give it a go.

[Grampire]

Originally posted by C1REX-PL:

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

There is a lot of symbolism and many things are left to interpretation, but the core of the story is made pretty clear as you play through the game.

I thought the same but later got confused and I’m not sure what’s going on now.
It’s starts simple. She was rejected. Plenty of pills in the house suggesting mental illness. Car crash. Mother paralysed and a child unharmed.

Then I get conflicting parts:
She got a son - not a daughter.
She looks different in the game than in reality (car crash clip)
Why she has two colour eyes in the game? Dual personality?
Why she has his son’s toy (green blocky figure) in the spaceship?
Why we control the boy in the house and his toys are used as enemies and artefacts in the game?

I’m in act3 and I’m more confused now than I was after beating act1.

Exactly my thoughts. I think either:

• Selene and Helios are the same person - representations of Theia's single child - the latter being the innocent version she resents that escapes Hell (and moves into the light/sun/"Helios") and the obsessive, self destructive representation that is stuck there, drawn to her worst ambitions (darkness/night/moon/"Selene").
  
  
• Selene and Theia are the same person - where Selene represents the projection of Theia that isn't a complete failure but is critically flawed by hamartia. Therefore Selene is still the "child" of Theia in the sense she created her but she's basically a product of her worst ambitions, unwittingly trapping her in torment.

The second option makes more sense to me, because that would mean Hyperion is Helios' father. If both of them died in the crash, Theia would be stuck in purgatory while Helios is shown as having escaped, since he is innocent.

We're never shown a second car accident and there's no implication I'm aware of that there were two. That would also be supremely bad writing in my opinion - a car crash being responsible for both mother and daughter's similar fates? That would suck IMO.

When Selene attacks Theia at the end of the game it's basically Theia rejecting herself as a disgusting, failed human and mother and accepting responsibility for what she's done as irredeemable. That is her method for "escape," or at least accepting that she's exactly where she deserves to be.

The white shadow is the obsession with becoming an astronaut - an obsession with something she can't have which destroys her. When she initially thought it was her "escape" at the end of Biome 3 it is in actually the thing that binds her to her torment.

I'm convinced the car crash is actually Theia and Helios - or whatever their actual names are. Selene isn't a real person - just a construct of either Theia or Helios.

[C1REX]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

It's a shame you can't visit the house again without wiping your save, would have been useful to refresh my memory. Maybe I'll make a backup and give it a go.

It’s possible to watch them again on YT. I will do that after finishing ACT3.

The most confusing part for me is why we control the boy and if it’s partly or fully his story and not just Selen’s.
100% of enemies are octopuses - his favourite toy. The boogeyman astronaut is his another toy.

[SlickDrickle]

It makes about as much sense as the title of this thread.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by C1REX-PL:

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

It's a shame you can't visit the house again without wiping your save, would have been useful to refresh my memory. Maybe I'll make a backup and give it a go.

It’s possible to watch them again on YT. I will do that after finishing ACT3.

The most confusing part for me is why we control the boy and if it’s partly or fully his story and not just Selen’s.
100% of enemies are octopuses - his favourite toy. The boogeyman astronaut is his another toy.

I think we get to play as the kid for a little while, in order to understand the neglection and lack of loving care. The astronaut is how he perceives his cold and distant mother, or to be precise how Selene sees herself as a mother now that the guilt and regret has settled in. For example, when he goes down to eat and there are no cereal, he is not alone in the home, his mother has just arrived. Now, I'm not sure if I'll spoil anything if I start talking about the octopus.

Edit: There are also story bits in the Tower of Sisyphus